Claire Rolls
Claire lives in the leafy green suburbs in Hawke’s Bay with her two teenage children. She brings her experience and passion for working with children, along with a leadership and management background; she hopes to make a positive impact on the early childhood sector in the Christchurch, for many years to come.
Claire is a long-time advocate for children’s causes and education issues with 25 years experience within the early childhood sector. Claire’s skill set and experience is based around building learning communities, organisational culture, building successful teams with technical skills and best practice within the industry.
Claire is distinguished by her ability to identify, leverage, and develop teams. Throughout her career, she has helped teachers recognize their unique capabilities and position themselves as strong leaders through leadership development. She has a contagious enthusiasm and passionate belief in people that inspires them to become prouder, stronger, and more valuable contributors to their community.
Cathy Sherwood
Cathy and husband Paul are farmers in the beautiful Hawke’s Bay and they have four teenage children. Cathy has been in the ECE industry for 22 years, 6 years as a teacher and 16 years in various management and consultancy roles. Cathy has established and managed 10 successful Early childhood centres in Hawke’s Bay, Auckland and Christchurch, and has supported a number of ECE centres to increase and maintain quality outcomes for children and develop effective teaching teams.
Cathy takes a vision and makes it reality through sound strategy development. She intuitively sees threads of opportunity that wind through an organization, brings them together, helps others extend their thinking, and drives sustainable business advantage by ensuring an environment where people and knowledge can flourish. She is an inspirational leader who tells stories that inspire action while at the same time is grounded in financial information that ensures a high quality environment for all involved; children, parents, teachers and the community.
Rob Farrell
Rob has been a Christchurch local for 30 years and shares three beautiful children, with his wife Nicola. Rob has developed a strong appreciation for the important role that quality childcare plays in our children’s lives. The dedicated teachers, the community spirit of the families and the learning approach are key ingredients of what makes Grow unique. Professionally, Rob has a commercial background and spent the last 15 years across the property, construction and banking sectors. Rob works to develop and execute a strategic vision and plan to maximize our efforts to provide the Grow community of learners with quality access to educational and life opportunities.